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1500 questions
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What is the significance and method behind Ramachandran plots?
My PI showed a Ramachandran plot in class today with minimal explanation, but I'm interested in finding out more. I understand that the Ramachandran plot shows the relation between the omega phi and psi angleson either side of an amino acid…
Emmie MC
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Why are there N's after Sanger sequencing?
After sending a DNA sample for sequencing, the resulting sequence had N's in the beginning and end of the sequence. I know the N's mean that the computer can't tell what the base pair is, but why is this?
Kirby
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18
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List of np-hard problems in biology/bioinformatics
I'm not sure if this is the right place for this but...
I am looking for a list of computationally "hard" problems such that if a problem from this list could be solved effectively, it would be (significantly, or otherwise) beneficial in some form…
Colton
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Fish "coming back to life" after being frozen
I've encountered a clip on Youtube showing a goldfish thrown in liquid nitrogen and immediately after to normal water and swimming normally. In the explanation to the clip it says:
For everyone that is worried about the goldfish, it survived and…
SIMEL
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Why do people dying of immune deficiency diseases appear sick?
Please forgive the obviously silly appearance of this question, and/or of the tenor which may come across as flippant or dismissive of real world suffering. My intention is none of the above.
As a layperson, I have always understood that the…
Yevgeny Simkin
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Are viruses self-propelled?
So obviously, viruses are nonliving. But when my teacher was teaching viruses in the video (we're doing "flip" learning this semester), the way he described it, it seemed like the viruses responded to their environment in that they moved around…
evamvid
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The Origin of Mitochondria
For a long time I've just accepted, because it is just what everyone told me, that mitochondria became organelles in the cell when they were "engulfed" by another cell which acted like it's host. This is the endosymbiotic hypothesis.
"The…
rg255
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Are stable isotopes ever used in pharmaceuticals?
Carbon has two stable isotopes, C-12 and C-13. Since they both have the same electronic structure they can both make up the same molecules, but presumably they may perform different functions in biochemistry due to different mass.
Q: Have various…
imrobert
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Male and female seahorses: which is which
Seahorses have two sexes. One has mobile gametes, the other gives live birth. I imagine that a biologist who discovered the seahorse would initially call the first "male" and the second "female".
That is not the case: for some reason (why?), the…
Wouter
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Do the majority of fish lack scales on their heads?
Based on pictures, it seems to me that a vast majority of fish species that have scales do NOT have scales on their heads.
Is that fact true?
To make this properly answerable:
lets' define a "majority" as >70% of fish species. But frankly, I'm…
DVK
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Why is loud music much louder after pausing and resuming it?
If I pause a sufficiently loud song (in headphones) for several seconds, then resume it, I perceive it as deafeningly loud, even painfully. Yet, if I first lower the volume, resume, and then gradually increase it over a span of as little as two…
OverLordGoldDragon
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18
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3 answers
Why do humans find baby animals cute?
Why do humans find baby animals like cats, dogs, ... so cute?
As these are potential competitors (when grown up!) or even natural enemies (like e.g. tigers, leopards, ..), the protection instinct (reasonable for the babies of your species) should…
TheJJ
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How do trees lift water higher than 10 meters?
The atmosphere pressure is 10 meters of water (approx). This means that it is impossible to lift water higher than 10 meters with vacuum or сapillary action (on Earth, under normal conditions).
There are trees higher than 10 meters.
How do they lift…
Suzan Cioc
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4 answers
Isolation of viruses and Koch's Postulates in connection with terrain theory and claims that viruses don't exist
If, as a physicist, I were to be told that quarks have never been isolated, and so they are not actually real particles, it would take some effort to respond. I'd have to talk about the Standard Model and Asymptotic Freedom, and thus admit that…
Diagon
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When does a virus become a different species?
Related:
When does one decide to refer to a virus as a new variant?
I've been thinking about all the news related to "variants" of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including the infamous "Delta Variant". One thing that strikes me as odd is that there seems to…
Robert Columbia
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